TheVat

Good God no. I think healthy consciousness needs a fresh brain after a century or so, no matter how much wisdom or patience age brings. I would think the most creative and self-regenerating and joyful person in the world would inevitably find their thoughts growing stale and jaded after a century. I don't think we humans are wired for immortality, and our lives are meaningful because they are quite finite. At the least, we would need some sort of biological form of reincarnation, something that wipes the years clean every so often and restores a youthful openness.

Re, the first four words of your paragraph, glad someone noticed. Amazed that the blather of JP has catalyzed so much discussion here. Imagine someone predicating their behavior towards black people with JP's logic. Pfft, "black" isn't a real thing, is it? We should listen to anthropologists rather than your lived experience!

Thanks. It's been a half century since my reading Catcher in the Rye, so I may have to dig around to get what you're referring to. You are referring to the loss of innocence - as in the Burns poem - I gather.

Hahaha! Amoebazon is also good.

Would just like to say to whoever zeroed out my plus one: My post was entirely in jest, a bit of gentle satire, nothing more. Perhaps some need an emoji to guide them?

I like Rovelli's approach, that it's all about the interaction and not about any properties intrinsic to the object of observation. It's the observer (device)-photon relation that is wavelike or particle-like, not light in and of itself. You can even have device interactions with buckyballs (C60) that are wavy and say nothing about intrinsic ballsy-ness in the absence of which-path info (the experimenter is another matter). Bangstrom, if you recall Marshall at SCF, he was a big Rovelli fan, owing to the relational perspective.

Zapatos, poor sod, has never witnessed the passion of earthworms mating and the forbidden love between a toad and a cat, the love that dare not speak its name. From the humble paramecium and its many paramours, to the literate and steamy sonnets of the witty dolphin, the biome is drenched in love!

Only "discovered" him about a decade ago, which means four decades of my life bring poorer than they could have been. Effortless and stunning guitar playing, amazing baritone with Scottish pipes droning deep within. A friend recently quoted from Down Where the Drunkards Roll, which made me think of him and the necessity to revisit his work and recharge my soul.

For a half hour or so, I have been unable to make either the quote or reply function work here in a couple threads. I click on the buttons, but nothing happens. I verified I was still logged in. Is this a routine glitch here or is something going on today? This thread, obviously, is not having the problem. OK, now it's working again. As with many glitches, there may be no answer to this.

That was surreal.

The philosophy seems to be nihilism as interpreted by the most self-loathing. With a paradox at the center: If adherents self-apply the core doctrine, then they may well increase the suffering of family and friends, which would then contradict their stated goal. If they destroy animals and forests, then they increase human suffering, which again contradicts their goal. Any philosophy that can only be successfully implemented by a total holocaust is not worth your time.

Fairness seems to be of less concern to the lifelong entitled. Now you would think anyone with the mental acuity of a small soap dish might be able to grasp, when lives of less privileged people are described for them, that there is a Rawlsian case to be made for enforcing some degree of fairness. http://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/veil-of-ignorance

LOL. Too much "aether," perhaps.

Yep. Is there an antique somewhere missing its nuts? (jokes not disallowed)

Yes. To say the world is essentially quantum is to assert scientific realism, a philosophic view that many interpretations of QM reject. I am more comfortable saying the world is essentially discrete packets, without any ontological assertions about superpositions, wavefunctions, or cats.

Anything with an old blade hinge that extends a panel of some kind (antique keyboard instrument, antique secretary desk that extends in some fashion, etc) or even could be an adjustable weight used to adjust the balance arm on an old kitchen scale. There are dozens of things that have sliding locking nuts, but I'm not enough of an antiquarian to pinpoint one. What about a pendulum adjuster from an old clock?

I think SJ is correct. Looks like the locking nut for an old casement window.

Does being dead, instead of having a life, seem preferable to you? If your answer is no, then this doctrine is adequately rebutted and may be dismissed. If you answer is yes, then we should end this chat and encourage you to seek professional help asap. An additional question is what is wrong with some suffering, if we can endure it, learn from it, and then enjoy our lives and take satisfaction in what suffering taught us? Euthanasia usually is considered only when the suffering blots out all other aspects of life.

To gain a better understanding of how such a philosophy is implemented, who volunteers to go first on the consciousness reduction?

Brief definitions would help the conversation. Guessing wildly on the meaning of promortalist, I will say that I'm all in favor of mortality, as the planet would be SRO at this point without it. J/K

"I refuse to engage in a duel of wits with an unarmed man."

As the economist EF Schumacher noted, "Growth is the philosophy of a cancer cell. " And there are others in that field looking at how some form of capitalism might harmonize with a society of dropping population. It's been pointed out that such a society would have full employment and labor would be more valued since a smaller percent of the population would be of working age. Wages would rise for those of lowest income, especially, and I suspect employers would offer more attractive benefits and conditions.

I was the admin of a science forum that shut down last May. I came here because I really missed the online forum experience, and this one offered a similar mix of science, philosophy, and issues of the day. There's nothing quite like interacting with curious lively minds that value scientific learning and the big questions.

I'm glad to hear you've evaluated their sensitivity to racism and found it appropriate and not excessive. Let me know if they ever get uppity and you need to advise them on that.

You mean dwarves?